"Often considered a summer-fall sport, football recently has added a third season -- spring -- to its competitive calendar.
Despite the lack of a Canadian Football League franchise for the second straight season, football is thriving throughout the city as teams stage tryout camps to select their players for the upcoming amateur and semi-pro seasons."
Clear evidence that there isn't any local support for football in Ottawa, after all. :roll: :roll:
lol, who said they don't play football in Ottawa?
the question is can the Community support a CFL franchise, Can the Community Raise 10M$+ a year(League $$ is around 2M)
are there 25K+ Football supporters willing to pay 25$+ per tickets(average)(before taxes) to watch CFL football.
Is the Corporate Community willing to front 3M$+ per year
If yes to both a CFL team could Survive
Yearly revenues of 9.25M from 25K average fans at 25$ average + 3M in corporate sponsorship.
9.25M is atleast 750K$ short of the needed amount but it is a start.(and better then Ottawa was doing when the team left)
Here is a sad fact, the Gliebermans were handing out cheap season ticket packages(99$) and the Stadium wasn't sold out. Even if you thought the Gliebermans were total idiots that was under 10$ a game(or it may have been after the pre-season game if they had one so 11$ per game) I mean come on, 11$ a game? that's nothing.
How could they not have averaged 25K fans in their last year?
AGAIN, I know the Gleibermans were stupid, but if you love football you should go out to see it at that price.
Sherbrooke Quebec has two CIS team, that is strong support of football.
the Maritimes have around the same pop as Ottawa(more yes but it's close) and they have 4 CIS teams.
How come Ottawa had a CIS team Dispand in 1999?
Clear Questions of Ottawas ability to Support Pro football.
If they have great support of amateur football great, then they may be able to support a team when those kids can afford to pay for CFL tickets(12 year olds don't tend to have jobs)
I think the point that Kev was trying to make is that there is interest in the sport itself. It goes back to what I stated before; fans here would support football, they wouldn’t support a circus.
You’re also assuming that every remaining ticket was available for $99. That’s not the case, it was specific sections. And even if the team had sold every seat, they STILL would have lost millions.
People don’t think Lonie is an idiot because he’s a bad guy. They think he’s an idiot because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. You can’t make money selling tickets at $10.
Because fans such as yourself love football so much, you think everyone should flock to games regardless of what's out there. Every city has that share of fans, and Ottawa is no different.
But that share is not enough to sustain a team; you need the casual fan brought in. And when the product is looking lousy, then people won't go regardless of price. You could hand me a free ticket to a Tom Green movie, I ain't friggin' going. I can find other ways to waste my time.
Football may be popular in Ottawa, its just the CFL that has a hard time drawing a crowd there. Too many Ottawa fans expect a contender right away, and an owner who is going to coddle them and kiss their collective backsides if they get a CFL team back anytime soon.
A contender right away? Nah…but they do want an entertaining product. Things were looking up when the team, though an overall loser, were at least entertaining in 2003. They won a few home games in a row and the buzz was good. It wasn’t until they started to go cheap that things turned sour.
Coddled? Nah…but they don’t want to be crapped on either.
Liking the game itself, and being able to successfully support a CFL franchise are two very different things. The reality is that Ottawa clearly cant support a team right now, and it $ucks for the fan that would go to every game, the fan that goes and watches a practice, the fan that bleeds their teams colors.
If you wanna talk about liking the game, Im sure you could find a small city or town and realize that they, too, love the game. Can they (a small city or town) support a franchise? Not a hope. So its not just love, its the financial backing that is required as well.
Fair enough. It does, however, give you something to work with. It’s better than trying to go into a market that has not shown any interest in the sport on any level, anyway.
Maybe the fans in Ottawa just really hate the stadium and it's location.
I can’t know for sure, but I doubt it. The stadium is right downtown and has all kinds of bus coverage. Parking can be tricky, but I don’t think it’s to the point where people would stay home because of it. Not that I’ve ever heard anyway.
I liked an idea that John Jenkins and Richard Wade had talked about on the radio once when a caller (from Gatineau) complained about stadium location. They were planning on establishing a shuttle bus system from different spots in the city that were easier to get to, mostly from sports bars and such so that people could go have a drink, hop on a bus with other fans a head for the game.
That made sense to me, though I have no idea what kind of cost would be involved with that. I believe they did have one from Carleton University or something already.
Something they did that I loved, but it wasn’t very well known about, was a catered boat ride down the Ottawa Rider to the stadium and then back again after the game. They should have promoted that a lot more. On a nice day, it was a great time.
The stadium in Ottawa is not a problem for the vast majority. It has adequate parking both in and around the stadium, easy bus access, only about a 15 mt walk from downtown, and is right along the canal. It does need to improve its upkeep, in the 2005 season it was not well maintained.
We can break down numbers all day. The bottom line is:
Equals: 23-27k fans per game. I guarantee it. Just look at the past 25 years. Bad ownership, horrible on field product, no winning records, no home playoff games, a PA system that hasnt worked properly since Tom Clements was QB...and Ottawa still put 20k in there every game.
The Tiger-Cats have proven that a team rich in history and tradition can thrive with the right ownership.
'Nuff said.
the 2005 Renegades actually didn't have a bad on-field product.
I completely acknowledge the Season tickets for 99$ were stupid, but Every one of those tickets should have been sold if there is a solid fan base.
Somehow Ottawa had(reportedly) 23K Season tickets for their first two years but then that dropped to under 6K(before the 99$ deal)
How come in 2005 Season ticket sales were so bad?
The Glieberfools came in june 2005 so they can't be blamed for the reported ~17K Season ticket holder drop.
With 99$ season tickets team would need to sell 40K packages to earn ~4M in ticket sales.
Did Ottawa have any Corporate Support?
Corporate support was always strong. And I anticipate, would be strong again.
Following the 2004 Grey Cup in Ottawa, the original ownership group crumbled, leaving the whole off-season in dissaray. Enter the Gliebermans...and we dont need to keep re-visiting that disaster.
Anyway...lets just hope for an announcement...soon. Maybe they want to wait until the Sens cup run is over so they can get the city's full attention...who knows.
You’re getting your numbers confused. 23K was said to be the average attendance in 2003, not the seasons ticket numbers.
And I’ll disagree about the 2005 on-field product. It started well, and you’ll see that attendance was increasing as the team reached a 5-3 record.
But then they won only two of the next ten, and one of those was the season-closer when they were out of the playoffs and the Argos were resting starters. They lost those eight games by an average of about 20 points.
I should clarify that the $99 was only stupid in its execution. I don’t object to charging that for a couple of sections to try to get fans back. But they did a few things wrong with it.
a) The first time, they made it in most of the stadium, including areas where seasons-ticket holders had paid four times the price for the same seat. Sucks to be among the first to pledge your support and be charged 4X what some Johnny-Come-Lately was as your reward for your loyalty.
b) Those same seasons ticket holders would arrive at games with people already in their seats. The $99’ers were led to believe they could sit anywhere in the section. They would arrive early and park themselves in the first rows. Then the “real” seat holders would arrive and have to kick them out. It wasn’t until later that the Renegades clarified this.
c) They announced there’d be another one the following year. So now the guy who paid $400 for his seat in 2005 doesn’t want to feel screwed again. He’s going to wait until the sale comes up again rather than renew at the regular price.
Decent idea, crap execution.
Ottawa is too big time for the CFL! They're wating for Paul Godfrey to get an NFL franchise to play in Lansdowne Park!
Of course I jest. But Ottawa isn't a football town. The fact they've never sold out Landsdowne Park, or whatever they call it now, in the years they played there with all the great teams they had speaks volumes.
They've never sold it out because its a crappy 100 year old stadium that's been outdated and decrepit for 50 years. It was fine for drunken Panda games and maybe other junior sports but it's a far, far cry from an enjoyable experience to go there.
The location isn't too bad, except that (AFAIK, I haven't been there is a long while) it doesn't have any rapid transit service other than buses.
That stadium is really a laughing stock.
Unless you go all the way back to the 70's, Ottawa did not have anything in the form of a great team ...
Thats my point. Ottawa never sold out with Russ Jackson. Never sold out with those great teams with Tom Clemens and Conredge Holloway. Never in their history sold out a regualar season game. NEver in their history sold out a playoff game.
And we're not talking 60,000 seats here. We're talking about 37,000.
In fact my friend attended the largest gathering at Landsdowne Park in the mid 70's. The crowd was around 35,000 for a game with the Alouettes. But it was not a sellout.
Fair enough, I didn't think we were going that far back in the annals!
It's more than a bit shocking that Ottawa's never sold out a game. But, I thought Lansdowne/Frank Clair only held closer to 30,000?
And at least the 2 most recent Grey Cup games there ('88 and '04) sold out ...
I guess the question becomes, outside of Montreal, how many teams actually sell out games?
Not too many is my bet.
Technically, the Riders never had a sellout until the last few years, but that was because we packed them to the rafters for Labour Day.
But sellouts are certainly not the norm in the CFL, so not selling out Lansdowne is not in and of itself meaningful---if that is true....
Anyway, I believe the capacity is around 30,000, but may have been larger in the past. A few stadiums have made changes resulting in a lower overall capacity.